


Highland Terrors

by Pen37



Series: To Say Nothing Of The Dragon [3]
Category: Brave - Fandom, How to Train Your Dragon - Fandom
Genre: Astrid wears the pants in Berk, Elinor is a worried mom, Elinor is salty toward the Irish, Gen, Hiccup and Merida are both ambassadors, Humor, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 09:40:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17342984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pen37/pseuds/Pen37
Summary: Life goes on, sometimes not the way you plan it.  Sometimes with sheep herding dragons.





	Highland Terrors

**Author's Note:**

> So these characters are not done with me. Mainly they’re just living their own separate lives. Lives that continue to run parallel to each other. 
> 
> And let’s face it, Merida is already a Disney Princess. I couldn’t resist giving her a flock of singing animal companions.
> 
> I don’t try to faithfully reproduce accents. Just add in a bit of slang here and there for flavor. It’s like pepper. You don’t want to overdo it.

Astrid, Snotlout and Fishlegs were waiting by the arena when Hiccup and Toothless landed. Fishlegs made grabby hands at Hiccup’s new maps. 

“How’d it go?” Astrid asked. 

“I couldn’t find the Wanderers.”Hiccup said.

“Imagine that.” Snotlout said sarcastically. Astrid cuffed him across the back of the head. “Ow! What?”

“But the Bashem Oiks are willing to trade with us as long as we don’t trade with the Ugli Thugs.” Hiccup handed a scroll to Astrid. 

“That’s something, at least.” Astrid sighed. 

“Is it?” Snotlout asked.

“Yes, We don’t trade with the Ugli Thugs, anyway.” Astrid looked like she’d just found dragon dung in her mead. 

“We don’t?” Snotlout asked. 

“They trade in slaves.” Astrid said.

“Oh,” Snotlout said. 

Fishlegs kicked the ground and sighed. Hiccup was starting to understand that if they let them go on, Astrid and Snotlout would be like this for hours, regardless of who was around. 

“Anything happen while I was away?” He interrupted to change the subject. 

“You missed all the excitement,” Fishlegs answered with a relieved look. 

Snotlout chortled. “While you were gone, that crazy redhead Scottish princess stopped in.” 

“Ambassador Merida o’DunBroch,” Astrid corrected Snotlout with a sharp look, “came to find a dragon.” 

“I expected her sooner,” Hiccup muttered. Merida had planned to return to Berk with him and Toothless, but her mother the Queen had overruled that plan. Something about doing things properly. Apparently that involved becoming an ambassador. 

“She found what she was looking for alright,” Snotlout laughed. “And then some.”

“What dragon did she end up bonding with? A Nadder? I’ll bet with her archery skill, she and a nadder would get along.” 

There was a telling pause from the others. They seemed to be holding a silent argument with their eyebrows about who would be the one to tell him. 

“Not . . . Exactly.” Astrid said diplomatically. “She attracted a pack of terrors her first day.”

“Terrors?” Hiccup blinked. 

“I think it was the singing.” Fishlegs said. “She had her window open, and she was singing about chasing the wind or somesuch. Before you know it, four terrors had landed on the tree outside and started singing along.”

“Terrors?” Hiccup said incredulously. 

“She took a liking to them. Named them Malinky, Numpity, Bampot and . . . Wee Dingwall.” Astrid said. “Said they reminded her of the “wee little doggies they keep back home . . . and Young Dingwall.”

“Terrors?!” Hiccup threw his hands up. “I thought she wanted a dragon she could fly?”

“Well, that’s not what she left with.” Astrid shrugged. “She mentioned something about teaching them to herd sheep.”

“That’ll end well.” Hiccup shook his head. “I hope she was joking.” 

“If anyone could teach a flock of terrors to be sheep dragons, I bet it’s her,” Fishlegs said. “You’ve heard the stories.”

“I was there for one or two of them.” Hiccup said. “At least the terrors will be good guards. They can take the place of those three sidekicks she used to have.”

“Especially Wee Dingwall,” Astrid nodded. 

He shook his head as he followed the others toward the mead hall. Terrors, really? Sheep-herding, Highland Terrors? 

—

Queen Elinor watched from the dock with a raised eyebrow as Merida’s men tied off her boat. 

Her wayward daughter was months overdue. She’d gone to Berk with the intent of finding a dragon to ride. But then the Queen had gotten a letter back through a trader informing them that the princess had been called away to Albion. 

Weeks later, Merida had written that she’d be returning with a surprise. 

Elinor was dragged from her musing when a quartet of small flying lizards erupted from the ship. 

She took a step backward, but then Merida’s head popped up from the hold. “Stand!” She called out in a strong, steady voice.

The flying lizards halted like they were frozen in place. As if by magic, they flew back to the ship’s rigging and roosted there. Once they were settled, a flock of fluffy white sheep with black faces and curling horns streamed from the hold, down the gang plank and across the dock. They parted like a stream of water where they encountered Elinor. 

“Cast!” Merida called out. The flying lizards took off, moving alongside the sheep, nipping at any that tried to wander away and generally keeping them together. 

Merida followed behind, calling out directions to her working . . . Dragons? 

Elinor blinked in confusion. She’d expected her daughter to return riding on the back of a dragon, with more wild tales of adventure designed to keep the Queen and Fergus pacing the floor at night. Not herding a flock of sheep. 

Where did she even get a flock of sheep?

Elinor followed dubiously behind. Once the sheep reached the livestock corral kept on hand for traders, Merida had the tiny dragons lead the sheep through the gate. She closed them in, then called each of the dragons to her. 

“That’ll do, Numpity! That’ll do Malinky! Bampot, Wee Dingwall! That’ll do!”

Once the dragons settled on the fence, she turned to Elinor. “So I didn’t find a dragon to ride.”

“I see that.” Elinor cautiously stroked between the nearest little lizard’s horns. It licked it’s eyeball. 

There was something so uncanny about it’s resemblance to Young Dingwall. The creature hummed contentedly, sounding like a bagpipe as it leaned into Elinor’s caress. 

“These are terrible terriers.”

“Terriers?” Eleanor asked doubtfully. 

“That’s what the Northmen called them.” Merida shrugged. “They certainly act like terriers.”

“You taught the wee beasties to herd.” Elinor observed. 

“They get bored easily, if you don’t give them something to do.” Merida said. “And when they get bored, things tend to catch on fire. And Wee Dingwall chews up the furniture.

“I’ve been teaching them to carry a tune as well. I might teach them to hunt like a falcon, next. But at the moment, I had sheep.”

“How did you end up with a flock of sheep?” Elinor asked, leaving aside the concerning issue of things catching on fire. 

“I had an errand in Albion, chasing a boggart away from a lord that was addled enough to name it. He gave me these wee black-faced sheep as a thank you.” 

Elinor started to ask what a boggart was, but decided that she’d rather not know. Once she’d been turned into a bear, she decided that there were some things she was better off not knowing. 

“They seemed like hearty, braw animals with fine wool. And they graze well on scrub. To my thinking, if they took to the highlands, a person could do well with a flock of them.”

“So you’re thinking of becoming a shepherdess, then?” Elinor asked carefully. A shepherdess princess might be less concerning than one who turns up sporadically with fire breathing pets. 

“O’course not.” Merida shook her head. “I don’t have time to watch a herd of sheep. Lambing, shearing, nursing through the night? Not my cup o’ mead. When would I have time to chase down elves and piskies? Not to mention, the terriers might set fire to the wool.”

“Of course not,” Elinor rolled her eyes. “What was I thinking?” 

“But if we added them to the other flocks?The other farmers might find they improve the wool quality?”

Elinor looked at the sheep again, this time with the eye of a Queen. She touched the nearest one, running it’s short curly wool strands through her fingers and ignoring the slight singe marks.

They’d need to send samples to the wool spinners to see what they thought. But if the sheep were as hearty as Merida said, introducing them into the local flocks might give their wool an edge over those scunners in Ireland.

“If they produce as well as you say, we could spread out the wee spring lambs amidst the farmers here, and improve overall wool production.” She nodded in approval. “You’re thinking like an ambassador should. Good work!”

Merida beamed. 

Just then one of her terrible terriers hiccoughed, and shot a bright jet of flame into the air. 

“Perhaps we’d better not look into a terrier breeding program, though.” Elinor said. 

“At least not while we have thatched roofs.” Merida nodded emphatically.

**Author's Note:**

> Hiccup was way off base in his assessment of Merida getting along with a nadder. Nadders are shown to be vain (like some parrots I know). I don’t think Merida would have a lot of patience for that, given her distaste for Young Macintosh. 
> 
> On the other hand, Terrible Terrors are smart little dragons that are full of mischief and don’t seem to realize that they’re too small to take down larger prey. Not unlike Merida and her brothers. 
> 
> And like Merida, they’re said to be accurate shots, with some of the strongest firepower around. (The HTTYD wiki calls them the snipers of the dragon world.)
> 
> Which just goes to show that Hiccup dosen’t know Merida all that well right now.


End file.
